VMWare vSphere
Last updated
Last updated
This page describes StackState version 4.2.
The StackState 4.2 version range is End of Life (EOL) and no longer supported. We encourage customers still running the 4.2 version range to upgrade to a more recent release.
The VMWare vSphere StackPack is used to create a near real-time synchronization with VMWare vSphere. This StackPack provides functionality that allows monitoring of the following resources:
Hosts
VirtualMachines
ComputeResources
ClusterComputeResources
DataStores
DataCenters
The VMware StackPack collects all topology data for the components and relations between them as well as telemetry and events.
StackState Agent V2 connects to the configured VMWare vSphere instance at port 443:
Topology data and tags are retrieved for the configured resources.
Metrics data is retrieved for the configured resources.
The Agent watches the vCenter Event Manager for events related to the configured resources.
StackState Agent V2 pushes retrieved data and events to StackState at port 7077:
Topology data is translated into components and relations.
Tags defined in VMWare vSphere are added to components and relations in StackState.
Metrics data is automatically mapped to associated components and relations in StackState.
Events are available as a telemetry stream in StackState.
To set up the StackState VMWare vSphere integration, you need to have:
StackState Agent V2 installed on a single machine that can connect to both vSphere vCenter and StackState. StackState Agent V2 connects to the VMWare vSphere instance on TCP port 443 and the StackState API on TCP port 7077.
If the Agent is installed on the StackState host, then port 7077 is localhost communication.
If the Agent is installed on a different host, you will need a network path between the Agent and StackState on port 7077/tcp, and between the Agent and VMWare vSphere on 443/tcp port.
A running vSphere vCenter instance.
The VMWare vSphere StackPack can be installed from the StackState UI StackPacks > Integrations screen. You will need to provide the following parameters:
VSphere Host Name - the VMWare vSphere host name from which data will be collected.
To enable the VMWare vSphere check and begin collecting data from your vSphere vCenter instance:
Edit the Agent integration configuration file /etc/stackstate-agent/conf.d/vsphere.d/conf.yaml to include details of your vSphere vCenter instance:
name - a unique key representing your vCenter instance.
host - the same as the VSphere Host Name used when the StackPack was installed.
username - the username to use when connecting to VMWare vSphere.
password - use secrets management to store passwords outside of the configuration file.
If required, you can customise the integration using the advanced configuration options.
Restart the StackState Agent(s) to publish the configuration changes.
Once the Agent has restarted, wait for the Agent to collect the data and send it to StackState.
The advanced configuration items described below can optionally be added to the VMWare vSphere check configuration file. Further details can be found in the example configuration file (github.com).
all_metrics
Yes
Default false. Set to true to collect every metric. This will collect a LOT of metrics that you probably do not need. When set to false (default), a selected set of metrics that are interesting to monitor will be collected.
ssl_verify
No
Set to false to disable SSL verification when connecting to vCenter.
ssl_capath
No
The absolute file path of a directory containing CA certificates in PEM format.
host_include_only_regex
No
Use a regex pattern to only fetch metrics for these ESXi hosts and the VMs running on them.
vm_include_only_regex
No
Use a regex to include only VMs that match the specified pattern.
include_only_marked
No
Set to true, if you would like to only collect metrics on vSphere VMs that are marked by a custom field with the value StackStateMonitored.
To set this custom field with PowerCLI, use the command: Get-VM | Set-CustomField -Name "StackStateMonitored" -Value "StackStateMonitored"
collect_vcenter_alarms
No
set to true to send vCenter alarms as events.
To check the status of the VMWare vSphere integration, run the status subcommand and look for vSphere under Running Checks:
The VMWare vSphere integration retrieves the following data:
VMWare vSphere events are sent to StackState in a telemetry stream. These can be mapped to components and relations in the StackState topology, however, they will not be visible in the StackState events perspective.
The VMWare vSphere check watches the vCenter Event Manager for the events listed below and makes these available in StackState in the generic events topic telemetry stream:
AlarmStatusChangedEvent:Gray
VmBeingHotMigratedEvent
VmReconfiguredEvent
VmPoweredOnEvent
VmMigratedEvent
TaskEvent:Initialize powering On
TaskEvent:Power Off virtual machine
TaskEvent:Power On virtual machine
TaskEvent:Reconfigure virtual machine
TaskEvent:Relocate virtual machine
TaskEvent:Suspend virtual machine
TaskEvent:Migrate virtual machine
VmMessageEvent
VmSuspendedEvent
VmPoweredOffEvent
The metrics retrieved from VMWare vSphere can be configured in the Agent check configuration file using the configuration item all_metrics. For details see how to configure the VMWare vSphere check.
The VMWare vSphere integration retrieves the following topology data:
Components
Relations
The VMWare vSphere integration does not retrieve any traces data.
All tags defined in VMWare vSphere will be retrieved and added to the associated components and relations in StackState.
The vSphere StackPack also understands the following special tags:
stackstate-identifier
Adds the specified value as an identifier to the StackState component.
The VMWare vSphere integration connects to VMWare vSphere using the VMWare vSphere client library and Python modules pyvim and pyVmomi. No API endpoints are used.
The code for the StackState VMware vSphere check is open source and available on GitHub at:
https://github.com/StackVista/stackstate-agent-integrations/tree/master/vsphere
Troubleshooting steps for any known issues can be found in the StackState support Knowledge base.
To uninstall the VMWare vSphere StackPack and disable the VMWare vSphere check:
Go to the StackState UI StackPacks > Integrations > VMWare vSphere screen and click UNINSTALL.
All VMWare vSphere specific configuration will be removed from StackState.
Remove or rename the Agent integration configuration file, for example:
Restart the StackState Agent(s) to apply the configuration changes.
VMWare vSphere StackPack v2.2.1 (2020-08-18)
Feature: Introduced the Release notes pop up for customer
VMWare vSphere StackPack v2.2.0 (2020-08-04)
Improvement: Deprecated StackPack specific layers and introduced a new common layer structure.
Improvement: Replace resolveOrCreate with getOrCreate.
VMWare vSphere StackPack v2.1.0 (2020-04-10)
Improvement: Updated StackPacks integration page, categories, and icons for the SaaS trial
VMWare vSphere StackPack v2.0.1 (2020-04-03)
Improvement: Upgrade the requirement of vSphere to use AgentV2 now.
VMWare vSphere StackPack v2.0.0 (2019-10-30)
Feature: Gathers Topology from your vSphere instance and allows visualization of your vSphere components and the relations between them.
